Conventionally, there has been an apparatus that includes a medicine storing portion having a plurality of compartments (blocks) for storing medicines to be taken and that gives by voice or display, when the medication time has come, a notice that the medication time has come.
As a medication managing apparatus of this type, to realize automatic recording and displaying of a medication record, there has been proposed a medication managing apparatus including: medicine storage means for storing one or a plurality of medicine(s) of a single dose for a user in divided portions; medication storage means for storing instruction of medication externally entered; medication instruction means for instructing the medicine to be taken from the divided portions stored in the medicine storage means on the basis of the medication instruction of the medication instruction storage means; medication sensing means for sensing taking-out of the medicine instructed by the medication instruction means; storage output means for storing the medicine taking-out record sensed by the medication sensing means, and outputting it externally; and display means for displaying the medicine taking-out record stored in the storage means (see, for example, Japanese Patent Laying-Open No. 2004-181137 (Patent Document 1)).
There has also been disclosed a medicine container having a plurality of medicine chambers, and light sensors respectively corresponding to the chambers for sensing the existence/absence of the medicine. When the medicine is taken out from a medicine chamber, in response to a sensing signal of the light sensor corresponding to the medicine chamber an identification signal of the light sensor and the detection time thereof are stored in memory. The time data stored in the memory is output externally based on an instruction from an external apparatus (see, for example, Japanese Patent Laying-Open No. 2002-362652 (Patent Document 2)).
Patent Document 1: Japanese Patent Laying-Open No. 2004-181137
Patent Document 2: Japanese Patent Laying-Open No. 2002-362652